Many businesses and organizations have an interest in what is being broadcast, but the volume of information available makes it prohibitive to monitor completely.
The overwhelming majority of broadcast sources include closed captions, which have been used successfully to identify the subject matter of a video stream. Systems have been developed to monitor and act upon the closed captioned text. For example, such systems trigger on the basis of keywords and selectively record video for later viewing. However, no refinement or cross-referencing could be performed on past video, and new searches would only be applied to subsequent video broadcasts.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,296 is directed to a scanning method of monitoring video content using a predefined set of keywords. Based on a keyword, the system has the ability to monitor multiple streams and to return reception devices in real-time to selectively capture the matching video. The described system also attempts to selectively save video that has matched while removing segments that have not matched. The goal is to selectively record only the video that is desired.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,986,692 is directed to a system for generating a custom-tailored video stream. The system is designed to work unattended, watching video signals, extracting and collating those that are deemed to be of interest to a specific user. The system also defines filters that attempt to detect and discern specific components of a video signal that are unwanted. For example, opening credits are video components that are typically undesired.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,056 is directed to a system that automatically monitors a video stream for desired content. Users enter their search parameters, and the system watches the applied video streams for matches. However, this system only records video when a match occurs. The user is then presented with a series of clips that were saved based on their matches. Any new searches or refinements to the query only take effect for future searches. As well, any desired content that was not caught by the programmed search is lost forever. As an example, a user search for “Company A” may produce a result announcing a surprise merger of “Company A” and “Company B”. With the system as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,056, new searches for “Company B” will only take effect on video occurring after the user adds this search. Therefore, the system is incapable of searching for any records prior to the new search being executed, such as recent happenings leading up to the merger.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,266,094 is directed to a system of aggregating and distributing closed caption text over a distributed system. The system focuses on extensive scrubbing and preparation of closed caption text to enhance usability. However, the described system has no facility for archiving the video associated with the clip, nor does it present the program text to the user.
It is, therefore, desirable to provide a media monitoring system that can dynamically search archived media content and real-time media content with unlimited queries.